


The Humerus Human

by Reversinator



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Big Brother Sans, Fluff, Gen, Gender-Neutral Frisk, I'm Bad At Titles, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sans is best big brother
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-05 20:46:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5389685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reversinator/pseuds/Reversinator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sans watches a human exit the Ruins. He also watches them collapse into a coughing fit. He keeps his promise and brings them back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chilled to the Bone

**Author's Note:**

> I put way too much time into researching sicknesses.

Sans heard the giant door open. Well, it was more like the giant door woke him during one of his “breaks,” and Papyrus would always argue that he was taking a nap that could be better spent somewhere else, but the end result was the same. He never heard it open before, but there were very few things that could produce a sound like that: nothing could produce the same booming creak, the same scrape against the pile of snow that naturally built up over the years. Even if he wasn’t at his sentry station, he was certain that he would have heard it. Sans guessed that the new arrival was a human (he doubted that any of the Ruins’ regular inhabitants would decide to leave), and a quick peek over his stand confirmed his suspicions. 

The human pushed the door shut behind them before continuing on. They appeared to be short, maybe a kid, with a striped purple-and-blue shirt with similarly-blue pants, and their arms were wrapped tightly around said shirt. Sans walked around to get a closer look, and even from behind them, Sans could easily tell that the human was shivering. Their entire body was shaking as if they had never even seen snow before. They let out the occasional cough as they took each step, their pace gradually slowing with each short stride. He saw the large branch only a few feet in front of them and an idea immediately came to him.

“hm,” he mused to himself, “a good prank would break the ice.” He grinned as the plan started to form. It’d be simple for him to snap the branch, shuffle behind them while the kid isn’t paying attention, and let the tension sink in before he pulled out the classic whoopee cushion trick. He always kept one with him after Papyrus asked him to prepare for any encounter with a human. A cushion which may or may not have been purchased by a certain stout skeleton (Sans just smiled a too-happy smile whenever he was asked) then found its way into Papyrus’s daily routine whether he liked it or not. Since then, it was an invaluable part of Sans’s equipment.

He waited until the kid was far enough away and then smashed the branch in half. The sound reverberated throughout the thicket. The human responded with a quick twist to look behind them and a longer sneeze. They wrapped themselves in their arms and kept walking forward. This was not the response Sans expected. He wanted to say that it simply wasn’t loud enough, even as it ringed in his head, but his grin slightly faltered. Still, he wouldn’t let one bad set-up ruin the punchline; he shrugged and waited for the next moment to arrive. This would ideally be when the kid had scared written all over his face, but he settled for when they were a few steps ahead. He stood behind them and trudged deeply in the snow, making sure that he made extra-crunchy sounds. He didn’t even see them turn their head; the kid violently coughed again and kept walking forward.

At this point, Sans called off the joke. It wasn’t worth it if nobody was going to laugh with him, and having his audience freeze in front of him was the opposite of what he wanted. He ran up to the human and tried to get their attention. 

“kid,” he said. The kid barely looked up before burying their head back in their arms. “hey, human,” he tried again, and this again led to little response. “come on, this is snow joke. say something to me, i’m feeling bonely here.” Sans thought he heard the kid giggle, but it was drowned out in a sea of coughs. At this point, they were taking extremely slow steps forward, having slowly made it to the gate that was too large to block even Greater Dog, let alone any human (despite Sans’s remarks, Papyrus insisted that a human would be easily stopped by the wide bars, and Sans smiled along). He wanted to say something to definitely get his attention, and the speech he created for his prank was the first thing that came to his mind.

“ **H u m a n,** ” he began. The human stopped in their tracks, though the shivers didn’t stop. “ **D o n’ t y o u k n o w -** ” The human’s shivering reached a fever pitch, and Sans realized that he just scared them from wanting to turn around in the first place. Boneheaded was the first word that came to his mind, but he would worry about that later. “hey, kid, i-“ The human’s legs suddenly buckled and they collapsed to the ground, stuck in another coughing fit. He sighed as he saw the poor kid in front of him, trying to stand up but barely able to support themselves. Sans decided to take the matter into his own arms, literally, as he picked them up in his arms. They were a bit larger than he originally thought, but he could somewhat-comfortably carry them. They flinched at the touch and make a weak attempt to escape, but Sans kept them firmly in their grasp. He saw their look once they stopped wriggling and took a strong glace at him. Finally, he had a proper chance to break the ice.

“come on, kid,” Sans quietly said, “you’re making me work to the bone here.” This got a small smile from them, even as they were coughing. “that’s it, i don’t want you to be skullking around me.” Another laugh escaped from them. He continued to bounce puns to the kid, who seemed to calm down with every giggle even as they were sneezing. Alongside the warm feeling of Sans’s hoodie, they soon started to settle neatly in his arms.

A weak “Thank you” was all the kid could say before falling asleep. Sans allowed himself to sigh again. The spiny kid running around Snowdin never gave him this much trouble when he tried his pranks on them (at worst, they looked at him like he was crazy when he asked them to shake his hand before he actually remembered that he didn’t have hands, or arms, or anything to really shake him with). To make matters worse, the kid he was holding was also a human. Most of the monsters wouldn’t be able to recognize a human anyways, but the Royal Guard, Undyne, and Papyrus – especially his brother… He wondered how he was going to deal with this. As if on cue, he heard Papyrus running towards him, every few steps occasionally accentuated with a “NYEH!” Lying was the last thing Sans wanted to do, but he was okay with temporarily shirking responsibility.

“a promise is a promise,” he muttered while facing the entrance to the Ruins. With that, he walked behind his post with the kid in hand, gently placed them down on the couch, turned off the TV, and waited for his brother to come back to the house.


	2. A Problem for Tomarrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have a list of puns sitting to the side on my documents. Mostly skeleton puns.

Sans wondered how long it would take for his brother to abandon his post once he noticed a lack of stout skeletons where at least one stout skeleton should be. More often than not, Papyrus did his best to make Sans take his sentry job seriously. There weren't many places that he frequented, and he took full advantage of that whenever he was in the mood to take a break away from the cold. His house was usually the first place that Papyrus checked, so he'd duck into Grillby's. His brother stayed away from the place after a close encounter with the ketchup, though that didn't stop him from shouting outside. Not long after that, Grillby would give Sans a glare, signalling that he needed to pick up his brother, and he'd understandingly smile and exit the joint to get an earful. Come tomorrow, the cycle would repeat.

A light cough coming from his side reminded him why he was at his house in the first place. With no snow to bother then and no brother in sight, Sans took the opportunity to take a look at his houseguest. The kid (he should remember to ask for their name when they wake up) was sleeping in a way that could easily be described as peaceful if they weren't constantly coughing. They were bundled up in one of Sans's bed sheets, with only their head sticking out, and even then their presence wasn't obvious. Their eyes looked puffy, maybe from some sort of allergic reaction, and some light bags hung under his eyes. Their sweater looked warm, but not nearly thick enough for the kind of weather that Snowdin offered. The makeshift blanket seemed to do the job for them, but Sans would have to pick up some clothes for them. The general store generally had every size needed, and even if they couldn't make it to the store themselves, a rough estimate is all he needed to...

Sans was thinking about buying clothes for the kid. He couldn't help but chuckle at the thought. He was thinking about taking care of this stranger, and a human at that. It'd be easy to set them up with some warm water, give them a pat on the back, and let them go on their own. He could always check up on them every once in a while, making sure they haven't thrown themselves into an unwinnable situation, and then he'd be free to take a break between jobs instead of keeping track of someone else. They looked resourceful enough, especially if they already made it past the ruins without so much as a scrape on them.

The sleeping figure next to him coughed again. It was a nice thought while it lasted; Sans sighed, somewhat regretfully but also with a newly-found sense of optimism. 

Papyrus suddenly ran through the door, an irritated look etched on his face.

"SANS!" he said (and he didn't shout, despite one too many claims to the opposite), "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? YOU HAVEN'T RECALIBRATED YOUR PUZZLES IN EIGHT DAYS, AND YET HERE YOU ARE, LOAFING ON THE COUCH!" Sans couldn't help but grin wildly at his brother's behavior. He would never get tired of seeing him charge forward, putting his entire self into whatever he did, but that can-do attitude would be problematic when it came to the human under his guard (again, the thought seemed out of place but not unwelcome). As soon as Papyrus knew about them, he'd contact Undyne and she's storm into Snowdin, armor at the ready and her spear primed for throwing. He didn't want to deal with her just yet, and decided that it'd be best to let Papyrus discover the kid on his own, so to speak.

"well," Sans replied, "i was busy with my bedsheet. do you wanna hold onto it?"

"NO! NEITHER OF US HAVE THE TIME FOR THIS! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, NEED TO BE READY FOR THE NEXT HUMAN TO COME!"

"Please don't talk so loudly," moaned a voice from the blanket.

"SORRY-Sorry, but I need to be the one to make that capture!" Papyrus was always known for talking at a volume that rested between "megaphone" and "trombone". More often than not, any attempt to tell him about his noisiness is soon forgotten once he becomes energized about something else. A couple of seconds passed. Sans saw the realization creep onto Papyrus's face.

"SANS, WHY IS THE BLANKET TALKING?"

"hey, you heard the voice. keep it down."

"Of course. Sorry." Another pause took place. Sans's smile only grew larger in the meantime. "However, my question still remains!"

"like i said, i was taking care of it. you sure you don't wanna take a peek?" Papyrus looked at him with a mix of annoyance and confusion before sighing in exasperation.

"All you do is lollygag! You can't even move your sheet yourself!" Papyrus tromped to the couch and whipped off the bedsheet with a flourish. Sans quickly tried to tell him to remove it gently, though he didn't make much of an attempt to stop him. The human flopped out of the blanket with a groan. Their face was firmly planted onto the cushion, but one look at his figure and his skin let Papyrus leap to the conclusion himself.

"SANS," Papyrus exclaimed, "IS THAT A HUMAN?"

"yep," Sans casually replied.

"DID YOU CAPTURE A HUMAN?"

Sans briefly hesitated. "you could look at it like that."

Papyrus didn't notice the pause. "BEFORE ME?" "yep." His brother took a moment to collect his thoughts, constantly eyeing the human in front of him as if they were liable to suddenly leap away.

"...THEY LOOK SURPRISINGLY SMALL FOR A HUMAN." As if on cue, the kid loudly sneezed. They rolled onto their back, nearly tipping off of the couch, their eyes firmly kept shut the whole time. Papyrus dropped any small skepticism he had and went to check on the kid. He put his hand to their head and didn't notice any warmness. They thanked him for the gesture by coughing in his general vicinity, and Papyrus accepted it by quickly moving away from them. "THE HUMAN DOESN'T HAVE A FEVER," Papyrus announced, "BUT THEY ARE CLEARLY NOT WELL!"

"don't you mean a-"

"A FEVER, SANS, NOT A FEMUR." Papyrus glowered at his shorter brother before continuing on. "I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, CAN'T SEND THEM TO UNDYNE WHILE THEY ARE IN PAIN!"

"you should run to the shopkeep and look for medicine. i'll stay here and take care of 'em."

Papyrus crossed his arms and gave Sans a steely glare. "IS THIS JUST AN EXCUSE TO STAY ON THE COUCH?"

"of course not. taking care of a human needs a ton of work." His brother, far too familiar with where the sentence was going, stormed out of the house before Sans could finish his sentence. "a skele-ton," he finished with a toothy grin. His young and solitary audience member laughed, and Sans couldn't help but flash a smile just for the kid. They still kept their eyes shut, but they looked much calmer than they did when they were outside.

"so," Sans began, "i'm sans. what's your name?" The kid took a moment to settle into the couch before giving an answer. "I'm Frisk." They also opened their eyes at that moment to see a skeleton in a blue hoodie grinning at them. They gasped and tumbled off the couch, landing on the floor with another groan. Sans quickly leaned forward to offer them a hand, which they quickly accepted. The two looked at each other, face to face, for the first time. Frisk wore an expression of apprehension on their face.

"Your hands are _cold_ ," they remarked before coughing into their arms.

"it comes with the bonely lifestyle," he joked, earning another laugh, though it came out a bit hesitantly. A silence lingered between them. Frisk held a nervous expression, looking at Sans from the corner of their eye. "what's with the look, Frisk?" Sans tried to get the ball rolling, and his mind defaulted to his arsenal of puns.

"you can trust us, kid, no skullduggery here." Frisk gave him a look of confusion more than anything, and Sans quickly realized that the word went over their head. A joke only works if the audience understands it in the first place, a lesson that Sans learned far too well when he placed a whoopee cushion on the ice cube conveyor belt. Ice Wolf had predictably grabbed it, emitting a massive fart sound, and then the wolf spent the next few minutes looking behind himself wondering how he had managed to produce such a sound without noticing it. The ice started to pile up, the Core stopped receiving anything to cool it down, and Sans "heh, sorry, i-"

Papyrus suddenly (he had a habit of doing that, not that Sans minded) barged through the door, a couple of nondescript cans in his arms. "GOOD NEWS," he announced while running to the kitchen, "OUR SHOP HAS BEEN STOCKED WITH PLENTLY OF SOUP! COMBINED WITH MY SPAGHETTI, THE HUMAN WILL FEEL WARM IN NO TIME!"

"sounds good," Sans commented. His brother's cooking skills have been steadily improving (after making a dish that forced them to block off the kitchen and wait until all of the damage dealt with itself, up was really the only possible direction), and with the addition of the soup, Frisk would hardly notice the inedibility; it wouldn't be an issue.

"I ALSO INFORMED UNDYNE OF OUR HOUSEGUEST!"

That, on the other hand would be an issue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suspense! Ooh!
> 
> One thing I like to do when I'm writing is give some detail, but not a lot. Enough so that you can visualize what's going on, but not enough so that you can fill in the blanks as you see fit. There are some elements that will be explained later, and there are others that are up to the readers. I am fond of the mini-stories I include in the narration, which are meant to be Sans' thought process, very quickly remembering a relatable situation before moving on. I might overdo it, though, so feel free to let me know if anything's off. Still learning the site's code, too, so tell me if I screwed something up on that front.

**Author's Note:**

> "x is sick and Sans takes care of them" is, as it turns out, not the most original idea, but I started writing this before I knew about other stories with similar ideas. It helps that most of those stories are interested in getting Sans to the bone zone, and nearly all of them focus on the reader or Frisk. Still, I'll shout out Sazuka57's Hypothermia.


End file.
